Joe Hill

"Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America" University of Minnesota Press, $22.95 Scandinavian culture, to use a Swedish slant, is more than hardtack and herring. Eric Dregni grew up fourth-generation Scandinavian in Minnesota of mostly Swedish and Norwegian heritage with a dash of Danish. He assumed that his family was normal "and our culture simply the way people must live, if they had any sense." Then, when he went into the wider world, he was surprised that not everyone ate "Jell-O-like fish" (that would be lutefisk, to the uninitiated) or "gut-wrenching" meatballs at Christmastime. Dregni makes clear in this wonderfully entertaining...

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"Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America"
University of Minnesota Press, $22.95
Scandinavian culture, to use a Swedish slant, is more than hardtack and herring.
Eric Dregni grew up fourth-generation Scandinavian in...